For Pa

Searching through my memory, I more often remember the significant, traumatic things, as is expected. The time I was abandoned at an Old Navy. The time I got lost while skiing in Steamboat, Colorado. But here and there, I find odd snapshots- eating in the lunchroom in elementary school or swimming in the pool with my black lab.

But even the significant memories have their own strangeness- the ones in that moment, we had no idea we would remember.

Like it was yesterday:

The four of us had our own side of the table. A perfect square. The cards were dealt neatly, quickly, with authority, checked, memorized, placed in the identical spot. I looked across the dinning room table to my partner; the light bounced off his wide glass rims; the light blue they hid was his tell.

He flipped the deciding card.

I listened to the knock to the right, turning my head to the left, trying to judge the reactions of my grandmother and my own father at the overturned card.

When the ultimate decision came around to me, I called it. He looked at me and nodded- confidence. 

Diamonds, Spades, Clubs, Hearts beating. Trump, Bauers, Euchre- the game was more than tradition.

The last trick and the one up my sleeve. 

Card laid, card played.

The win.

The smug smile from my fathers face slowly became one of an ungracious loser. The competitive gene runs deep.

He reached across the table and grabbed my hands, half the size of his own. Pride radiated from his blue eyes. My grandfather squeezed my fingers twice but doesn't let go.

I cannot remember letting him go.